Antiepileptic drugs in the 21st century

During the past 10 years, there has been a welcome influx of novel agents for the treatment of epilepsy. Many show advantages compared to older agents, including better adverse effect profiles and lack of drug-drug interactions. The sheer number of agents now available makes distinction among them confusing at times. Agents differ in spectrum of action, pharmacokinetic profile (affecting dosing schedule and drug interactions), and titration time. This review highlights the differences between the various new agents and the more traditional antiseizure drugs. Evidence for the widespread use of these compounds outside their indication, particularly for diseases other than epilepsy, is reviewed as well.     

Personality disorders in the 21st century

The diagnosis and classification of personality disorders have come a long way since the beginning of the 20th century. Perhaps by this time next century, the diagnostic manual of mental disorders will be using a dimensional model of classification that will provide more reliable and meaningful points of demarcation between normal and abnormal personality functioning. This article offers suggestions for the form, content, and placement of such a dimensional model. The particular model emphasized herein is the five-factor model of personality functioning, but the optimal diagnostic system will probably involve an integration of alternative dimensional models.     

Windows on the 21st century

Behavior analysis is a cultural system of which the Association for Behavior Analysis is a component cultural system. As cultural systems, they are composed of interlocking behavioral contingencies that constitute their cultural practices. Critical to the survival of both cultural systems is the frequency of interaction with and the nature of the content of the behavioral contingencies composing those cultural practices. The strengths of behavior analysis as a cultural system include its disciplinary character and its worldwide community of scientists and practitioners; its ability to be integrated into a scientific worldview; its track record in providing effective solutions to problems of importance to society; and the high levels of intellect, competence, and commitment that are characteristic of its participants. Weaknesses of behavior analysis are its status as an academic orphan, its relatively small size and its underdeveloped professional identity, and a lack of sociopolitical sophistication among many of its members. Behavior analysis will need to maximize its strengths and mitigate its weaknesses if it is to take advantage of the many opportunities available for growth in the modern world.     

Race/ethnicity and mental health in the first decade of the 21st century

Recent empirical studies on mental health generally report racial/ ethnic differences in depression rates but typically do not control for potential confounding by sample contextual variations in historical epoch, geographical location, and social demography. An empirical study of race/ethnicity differences in psychological distress is reported as an attempt to control these contexts by using a sample that is homogeneous in age, historical epoch, geography, and social demography (954 youth ages 18-19 living in a single, large urban community). No mean differences in psychological distress were observed among four racial/ethnic groups: Asians, African Americans, Latinos, and non-Hispanic Whites. A second analysis compared 17 different racial/ethnic groups defined in terms of family national origin. No differences in psychological distress were found among these groups. The findings are consistent with the view that race/ethnicity itself is not related to disparities in mental health.     

Women's health. Review and research agenda as we approach the 21st century

This article reviews past research and projects future research directions regarding women's health. Sex differences in mortality and morbidity, along with evidence that the quality and quantity of these differences are changing, are examined. Over the past decade, concurrent with dramatic changes in lifestyle and social roles for women, mortality rates have shifted, resulting in a decreasing advantage for women. Explaining the consequences of these dynamic changes requires understanding the health effects of such variables as perceived control, the experience of life roles, perceived and actual social support, and redefinition of gender roles. The future portends additional changes that will significantly affect women's health. In establishing an explicit psychological research agenda on women's health, (a) general recommendations for research are provided and (b) important issues that have not yet received a great deal of research attention (e.g., women and AIDS, psychopharmacology, reproductive technologies) are highlighted. This article expands the current discourse in health psychology and raises a number of issues for serious consideration.     

Psychological testing and assessment in the 21st century.

As spin-offs of the current revolution in the cognitive and neurosciences, clinical neuropsychologists in the 21st century will be using biological tests of intelligence and cognition that record individual differences in brain functions at the neuromolecular, neurophysiologic, and neurochemical levels. Assessment of patients will focus more on better use of still intact functions, as well as rehabilitating or bypassing impaired functions, than on diagnosis, as is the focus today. Better developed successors to today's scales for assessing personal competency and adaptive behavior, as well as overall quality of life, also will be in wide use in clinical settings. With more normal individuals, use of new generations of paper-and-pencil inventories, as well as biological measures for assessing differences in interests, attitudes, personality styles, and predispositions, is predicted.     

Height Psychology and challenges of the 21st century

The present article comments on Liu's target article while exploring the points of convergence and divergence of his Height Psychology with trends in non‐Asian psychology, and points to an area of further expansion demanded by the challenges of the 21st century, namely, climate change and intergroup conflict.     

Adapting human lifestyles for the 21st century

A number of ecological problems (e.g., global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, acid rain) have been identified, which threaten to reduce the quality of human life in the 21st century. These problems are human produced, resulting primarily from over-population and over-consumption. Alterations in people's awareness, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors may stimulate changes in their political and economic systems, which in turn might foster the kind of lifestyle changes that could mitigate these ecological problems. Psychologists can play a role in helping individuals and systems advance toward the goal of becoming a sustainable society: one that satisfies its current needs without jeopardizing the prospects of future generations.     

A social psychological perspective on World War II collaboration in the 21st century: A Belgian case

The present study addresses antecedents and consequences of attitudes towards collaboration in the context of World War II (WWII) in Belgium. A survey conducted on 922 Belgian French- and Dutch-speaking participants shows that, on overall, Dutch-speakers perceive collaboration as more moral and support amnesty of the former collaborators at a higher level than their Francophone counterparts. In addition, we show that these attitudes are predicted by the generational belonging, linguistic and national identification of the participants. Finally, we find that attitudes towards WWII collaboration are linked to specific political prospects for the future of the country only among Dutch-speakers. These findings suggest that, 75 years after its end, the issue of collaboration during WWII still divides the Belgian society. Furthermore, they underline the added value of a multilevel approach in the understanding of social psychological phenomena.     

Marital research in the 20th century and a research agenda for the 21st century

In this article we review the advances made in the 20th century in studying marriages. Progress moved from a self-report, personality-based approach to the study of interaction in the 1950s, following the advent of general systems theory. This shift led, beginning in the 1970s, to the rapid development of marital research using a multimethod approach. The development of more sophisticated observational measures in the 1970s followed theorizing about family process that was begun in the decade of the 1950s. New techniques for observation, particularly the study of affect and the merging of synchronized data streams using observational and self-report perceptual data, and the use of sequential and time-series analyses produced new understandings of process and power. Research in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the realization of many secular changes in the American family, including the changing role of women, social science's discovery of violence and incest in the family, the beginning of the study of cultural variation in marriages, the expansion of the measurement of marital outcomes to include longevity, health, and physiology (including the immune system), and the study of comorbidities that accompany marital distress. A research agenda for the 21st century is then described.     

神圣与世俗之间——论道教在21世纪的发展

充满希望的２１世纪已经到来了。在新世纪开始之际,有着近二千年历史的中国道教的发展既面临着机遇,也面临着挑战。这是不言而喻的事实。问题在于道教怎样去面对机遇与挑战？如何在新世纪对人类的文明与和平事业发挥更大的作用？这不仅是每一个教内人士必须认真思考的问题,也是道教研究者应该认真研究的问题。 从根本上看,宗教起源于人对自己生存状态的认识,并企望通过这种认识而建构一条解脱现实苦难,确立终极意义世界的通途。道教从创立之初,就以老子《道德经》为理论基点,围绕着人应当如何修身养性才能达到升玄之境而建立了以“…     

ADHD treatment in the 21st century: pushing the envelope

Required for optimal intervention for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is evidence-based matching of child, treatment, and situation. The landmark Multimodal Treatment Study (MTA) of Children with ADHD documented the superiority of pharmacotherapy for the vast majority of children with ADHD. Although this study could not address the problem of the match directly, it is generating important leads for research on the use of psychosocial strategies to enhance the scope and durability of treatment gains while decreasing the risks attendant upon long-term use of medication. Given the inherent distinctions between pharmacological and psychosocial treatments, conclusive answers to questions about comparative efficacy will continue to elude scientist-practitioners. Needed next is research examining ways to improve outcomes beyond the effects of medication, using systematically tailored and sequenced psychosocial approaches and exploring new treatment targets, agents, and modalities. To illustrate, some emerging findings from an ongoing experience sampling study and implications for online therapy are discussed.     

21世纪医药卫生发展趋势

２１世纪是知识经济时代。以信息科学和生命科学为先导的信息革命贯穿整个时代,生物技术开创医学保健新纪元。人类基因组计划即将好成,基因奥秘即将被揭开。人们在基因水平上将阐明艾滋病,心血管病的发病机制。基础医学研究的前沿学科是：生物信息学及其带动的医学分子生物学,遗传学,免疫学、内分泌学、药理学和神经科学等。在临床和预防医学领域是：取代医学,器官移植,癌基因工程,老年医学,远程会诊等。预防医学则推动第三     

Darwin's lost theory and its implications for the 21st century

This paper reports the reconstruction of the long ignored “second half” or human level completion for Darwin's theory of evolution. Pursuing the striking contradictions between what has been attributed to Darwin by his neo‐Darwinian and sociobiological heirs and what he actually said, in ignored sections of The Descent of Man and Darwin's long unpublished notebooks it uncovers a three‐level theory of the moral agent that foreshadows the emergence of 20th century social science and the late 20th century rise of the fields of systems science and humanistic psychology. Implications for a joint venture of natural science and social science in the completion of the humanistic and action‐oriented theory of evolution called for by the species‐threatening challenges of the 21st century are considered.     

Representing Health and Illness: Thoughts for the 21st century

The on-going discussion about a new empiricism in the study of the medical humanities has lead to a misapprehension about the problems attendant to representing health and illness. The difficulty in understanding the politics of health and illness as well as the concomitant new aestheticism that has arisen concerning its representation demands a rethinking of these categories in the 21st century. Obesity can provide a model for the importance of this problem today.